The Northeast Science and Technology (NEST) Center, a redevelopment of the former Merck global headquarters in Kenilworth, NJ, announced New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) as its first academic partner at the campus. The university plans to establish the NJIT @ NEST Center for Translational Research at the 100-acre site.

“The ecosystem created between the private and public sector and both large companies and startups is best anchored by academia,” explained John Saraceno, co-founder and managing principal of Onyx Equities. “For these reasons, we felt it was critical to bring NJIT—an institution of the highest caliber—to NEST. The decision for the university to move these facilities to the NEST campus will positively impact both healthcare and humanity.”

This partnership follows the recent announcements of CoreWeave establishing an AI co-location data center at the 11 NEST building and Revlon relocating its Science and Innovation Lab to part of the 15 NEST building. The location of CoreWeave and NJIT on the NEST campus supports NJIT’s growth in machine learning, computer vision, natural language processing and robotics.

Dan Loughlin of JLL and Jonathan Scheinberg of Outshine Properties represented the ownership group of Onyx Equities, Machine Investment Group and Pivot Real Estate Partners.